Movie review: 'Cars 2' belongs in the junkyard

Friday

Jun 24, 2011 at 12:01 AMJun 24, 2011 at 11:01 PM

It’s been a good, long run at Pixar, where the animation giant has been recording win after win for 16 years. But with “Cars 2” it finally spins off the track and hits the wall hard, spewing burning wreckage across the 3-D screen.

Al Alexander

It’s been a good, long run at Pixar, where the animation giant has been recording win after win for 16 years. But with “Cars 2” it finally spins off the track and hits the wall hard, spewing burning wreckage across the 3-D screen.

It’s almost as shocking as seeing the undefeated Patriots going down for the count in their last-minute Super Bowl loss to the Giants. It just wasn’t supposed to happen. But it has happened, and it’s ugly – brutal, even.

I’ve had minor quibbles with a couple of under-achieving Pixar entries like “Toy Story 3” and “Ratatouille.” But never in my wildest dreams did I think I would ever write that one of its movies was – I can barely type out the word – BORING. Yes, boring; the yawn of a new day in which heart and charming characters aren’t part of the Pixar equation, replaced by greed and the need to boost the sale of “Cars” merchandise at Disney stores across the globe.

Instead of a script, we get subliminal advertising via brightly colored talking cars zooming around like a swarm of 3-D gnats, challenging the limited attention spans of 5- and 6-years-olds long enough so that they’ll remember to tell Mom and Dad that all they want for Christmas is a splashy, red Speed McQueen action figure. Or one molded into the shape of his buck-toothed, redneck sidekick, Mater.

After all, it’s Mater (the grating voice of Larry the Cable Guy) who’s the star of this poorly conceived sequel in which he is mistaken for a secret agent by a couple of dim-witted Brits voiced by Michael Caine, Bond-ing with his alter-ego, a slick-looking Aston-Martin, and Emily Mortimer, looking like a flying grape as a winged, purple sports coupe.

Their not-so-clever names are Finn McMissile and Holley Shiftwell (What? No Cam Neely or Detroit Piston?), and as conceived by writer Ben Queen they are poorly developed characters on the trail of a mysterious figure trying to put the kibosh on an alternative energy source called Allinol. Mater, they believe, is their American contact, when in reality, he’s just a dumb hick from Radiator Springs accompanying his good pal McQueen (Owen Wilson) on an overseas trip to compete in the inaugural World Grand Prix, a multi-stage race across Asia and Europe featuring the fastest cars on the planet.

Like the race, the movie travels all over the map, dragging along an overstuffed plot that simultaneously aims to poke fun at the Bond pictures and get down and roll around in the smarm of a morality tale about being yourself even if the Europeans think you’re just another stupid American. Oh, wait, there’s also a budding love story between Mater and Holley, and a nasty grudge match between McQueen and a snooty Italian Formula One car voiced bit too enthusiastically by John Turturro.

Co-directors John Lasseter (“Cars,” “Toy Story”) and Brad Lewis haven’t a clue of how to keep all the cars in the air as they struggle to juggle the numerous story strands. It all ends up crashing to the ground in one massive pileup of missed opportunities and overreaching ambitions.

The only thing that survives is the superb animation, whether it’s the lifelike cars and trucks or the evocative backdrops that alternately celebrate and parody the culture and architecture of Japan, Italy, France, England and, of course, Radiator Springs, USA. It was in that latter spot where the first “Cars” was set. And it was a certified charmer, as it feted small-town life while movingly lamenting a lost era of classic car styling, two-lane highways and an easier, old-fashioned way of life. What sold it, though, was the presence of the commanding voice of the late Paul Newman, who merits a short tribute in the early part of “Cars 2.”

It’s a nice gesture, but it also serves as a reminder of how his presence is missed almost as much as the Pixar magic we started to take for granted over the years. Those days, and that trust, are over now, as “Cars 2” reveals that even the fine craftsman working at the Pixar plant are capable of building a lemon.

Al Alexander may be reached at aalexander@ledger.com.

CARS 2 (G) Featuring the voices of Owen Wilson, Larry the Cable Guy, Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer and John Turturro. Co-directed by John Lasseter and Brad Lewis. 1.5 stars out of 4.